Books:

book details

Book: The Dancing Boy by Michael Matson

Michael Matson

about this book: The Dancing Boy is a mystery.

Treat Mikkelson is not exactly a burnt-out case but he's grown tired of his life as a criminologist and weary of memories of a marriage gone wrong and of his time in Vietnam. Trying to burn the bridges to his past, he finds and remodels a cabin on a small Pacific Northwest Island, settles down to enjoy fishing, setting his crab pot, digging for clams and documenting the lives of his island neighbors.

When an elderly woman in the nearby tourist town of La Conner is found dead however, the victim of what appears to be an accidental fall, Mikkelson is persuaded to look into her death. The discovery that it was murder leads to something even more shocking: the human trafficking of young boys brought into the US and Canada.

The title of The Dancing Boy comes from the ancient Greek practice of using young boys as dancers and for sex. The practice is still evident in Afghanistan and condoned in Pakistan.

Readers will enjoy the details of areas of the Pacific Northwest that are used as locals for the story.

---

• "(Your novel brought back a) flood of memories of my years in the Skagit Valley. How much fun to return to those places hidden away in the cobwebs! But the MOST fun was the enjoyment of your story! How many anecdotes your tale triggers in my mind!" — David Greene